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CMST 132 - Small Group Communication


Library Research Assignment Section Six:
Preparing an Annotated Bibliography

To avoid plagiarism, you need to cite the sources you use for your projects. This section will give you practice in using the American Psychological Association (APA) style of citation using the sources you located in sections two through five. The APA citation style is used in many academic fields, not just psychology.

These citations will form part of the annotated bibliography you will write for your problem-solving assignment. Annotations are brief descriptions of the content of the sources you cite. Your instructor will go over annotations in class.

The distinction between a database and a website: The databases you use in this assignment are not available on the free Internet. They are online, but they are not available for free through Google, and they present different (and usually more authoratative) information. Consequently, they are in a separate category from a website that you find simply by searching the Internet. You also cite databases differently than you do websites, as you will see below.


Prepare an Annotated Bibliography using the three sources you located for this assignment.  There are many places you can go to learn how to use APA citation style, including:

  • Your CMST 132 workbook. Look for the handout titled: "Guide to APA Style Basics"

  • The ReSEARCH Station.  From the front page of the Station, click on Citing Sources, and then on the APA tab at the top of the screen.

    Important note on the APA guide: Under the "Database articles" tab on this guide, you will see two options for citing an article from a database -- one involving a Digital Object Identifier, or DOI, and the other without. For the purposes of this assignment you do not need to worry about the DOI. Just follow the example without it.

  • The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. This is the official style manual of the American Psychological Association and is held at the Reference Desk on the second floor of the Meriam Library under the call number BF76.7 P83 2010 (Reference).

Type the references on a separate sheet of paper labeled “References,” add annotations for each work you cite, and turn it in with this assignment.


END OF ASSIGNMENT:  You need to turn in three documents to your instructor:

Your worksheet, with the following sections filled out:

  • section one (constructing a search string)
  • information on an article from either section two or three
  • information on an article from section four
  • information on a book from section five

The title page of the book you located in section five

Your annotated bibliography

Please make sure your name is on your worksheet, staple it to your title page and annotated bibliography, and turn it in to your instructor.


 

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Six section diagram -- section six


Assignment created by Aaron Bowen.